1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and devices for printing characters and symbols on an elongated recording medium, such as an elongated tape. More particularly, the invention relates to methods and devices wherein the orientation in which characters and symbols are printed on the recording medium can be changed, and wherein the position of individual characters and symbols may be shifted along the longitudinal direction of the recording medium depending on the selected print orientation and the shape of the character or symbol such the printed characters and symbols appear evenly spaced on the recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Prior art tape printing devices are capable of printing mirror images of characters, symbols, etc. onto the back of a transparent tape. The transparent tape may then be bonded to a first side of a double-sided adhesive tape, a peeling sheet being attached to the second side of the adhesive tape. When the peeling sheet is removed, the printed tape may be adhered to an object, such as a video cassette, to serve as a label. Such prior art tape printing devices generally print characters horizontally in the longitudinal direction of the tape, as shown in FIG. 9A.
Some tape printing devices, such as the one disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 5-50657, are capable of printing in either the horizontal or the vertical direction, as shown in FIGS. 9A and 9B, respectively.
A conventional tape printing device prints vertically oriented characters by simply rotating the individual characters 90 degrees on the tape surface. Because certain characters are not located in the middle of the tape width when printed horizontally, when such characters are rotated 90 degrees, the characters are not evenly spaced along the tape. For instance, during horizontal printing, the character g is printed slightly lower than the middle of the tape width, and the symbol " is printed slightly higher than the middle of the tape width. During vertical printing where the characters are simply rotated 90 degrees, the character g is printed slightly lower than the middle of its two adjacent characters, and the symbol" is printed slightly higher than the middle of its two adjacent characters, as illustrated in FIG. 9B. The irregular character spacing is unsightly and unattractive.